The Dark Triad and HEXACO Model of Personality in Relational Aggression

92 Pages·2016·1.21 MB·English

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Master's Theses
Spring 5-2016
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Niki M. Knight
University of Southern Mississippi
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THE DARK TRIAD AND HEXACO PERSONALITY MODEL
IN RELATIONAL AGGRESSION
by
Niki Marie Knight
A Thesis
Submitted to the Graduate School
and the Department of Psychology
at The University of Southern Mississippi
in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements
for the Degree of Master of Arts
Approved:
________________________________________________
Dr. Eric R. Dahlen, Committee Chair
Associate Professor, Psychology
________________________________________________
Dr. Emily B. Yowell, Committee Member
Associate Professor, Psychology
________________________________________________
Dr. Michael B. Madson, Committee Member
Associate Professor, Psychology
________________________________________________
Dr. Karen S. Coats
Dean of the Graduate School

May 2016
ABSTRACT

THE DARK TRIAD AND HEXACO MODEL OF PERSONALITY

IN RELATIONAL AGGRESSION
by Niki Marie Knight
May 2016
Past research has linked relational aggression (RA) to many forms of psychological
maladjustment among children and early adolescents. Although less is known about RA
among emerging adults, there is a growing body of research demonstrating a number of
adverse correlates. This literature has sparked an interest in examining the role of
personality in RA. Most investigations to date have focused on the Five Factor Model;
however, the six factor HEXACO model of personality (Ashton et al., 2004) may offer some
advantages in studying RA. Moreover, the manipulative and often covert nature of RA
among emerging adults has theoretical overlap with the “Dark Triad” of personality (i.e.,
psychopathy, narcissism, and Machiavellianism). This study explored the utility of the
HEXACO model and the Dark Triad constructs in predicting proactive and reactive RA
among college students. Hierarchical multiple regression was used to test the predictive
utility of these constructs and assess the potential role of gender. Participants low in
Honesty-Humility and Agreeableness reported utilizing more proactive and reactive RA.
All three Dark Triad traits were positive predictors of reactive RA; narcissistic and
psychopathic traits were positive predictors of proactive RA. Although there was some
evidence that respondent gender moderated the relationships between certain independent
variables and RA in regression models that included all predictive constructs, these effects
were not evident when these variables were examined in isolation. The findings suggest that
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the HEXACO model of personality and the Dark Triad traits have utility in understanding
relational aggression among emerging adults.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Special thanks goes to my committee director, Dr. Eric Dahlen, and my other
committee members, Dr. Emily Yowell and Dr. Michael Madson, for their advice and
support throughout the duration of this research.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
ABSTRACT………………………………………………………………………………ii
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS………………………………………………………………..iv
LIST OF TABLES……………………………………………………………………….vi
CHAPTER
I. INTRODUCTION………………………………………………………...1
Models of General Personality Structure
The Dark Triad
The Present Study

II. METHOD………………………………………………………………..13
Participants
Instruments
Procedure
Statistical Analyses
III. RESULTS………………………………………………………………..21
Data Clean-Up and Preliminary Analyses
Primary Analyses
Exploratory Analyses

IV. DISCUSSION……………………………………………………………40
Relational Aggression and the HEXACO Personality Model
The Dark Triad and Relational Aggression
Limitations and Future Directions
APPENDIXES…………………………………………………………………………...53
REFERENCES…………………………………………………………………………..70

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LIST OF TABLES
Table
1. Scale Reliabilities, Means, Standard Deviations, and Gender Differences ............... 22
2. Intercorrelations of Variables .................................................................................... 23
3. Hierarchical Regression Analysis Summary for Honesty-Humility and
Agreeableness Predicting Reactive Relational Aggression ....................................... 25
4. Hierarchical Regression Analysis Summary for Honesty-Humility and
Agreeableness Predicting Proactive Relational Aggression ...................................... 26
5. Hierarchical Regression Analysis Summary for the PNI, SRP-III, and MACH-IV
Predicting Reactive Relational Aggression ............................................................... 27
6. Hierarchical Regression Analysis Summary for the PNI, SRP-III, and MACH-IV
Predicting Proactive Relational Aggression .............................................................. 28
7. Hierarchical Regression Analysis Summary for Honesty-Humility, PNI, SRP-III and
MACH-IV Predicting Reactive Relational Aggression ............................................. 30
8. Hierarchical Regression Analysis Summary for Honesty-Humility, PNI, SRP-III and
MACH-IV Predicting Reactive Relational Aggression ............................................. 32
9. Scale Reliabilities, Means, Standard Deviations, and Gender Differences ............... 34
10. Correlations of the HEXACO, PNI, NPI, MACH-IV, and SRP-III Scales With Raw
and Residualized Proactive and Reactive Relational Aggression .............................. 36

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CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
Relational aggression (RA) is a form of aggressive behavior that involves
damaging the social standing or relationships of the victim through socially manipulative
avenues, using the relationship as a vehicle of harm (Crick, 1996; Crick & Grotpeter,
1995; Ellis, Crooks, & Wolfe, 2009; Werner & Crick, 1999). Examples of RA include
threats to withdraw friendship, intentional ignoring, group exclusion, and rumor
spreading (Fite, Stoppelbein, Greening & Preddy, 2011; Werner & Crick, 1999). Among
children and early adolescents, RA has been linked to social problems, peer rejection,
depression, suicidal ideation, poor academic performance, and frustration (Fite et al.,
2011; Ojanen, Findley, & Fuller, 2012; Preddy & Fite, 2012). Furthermore, adolescent
self-reports of relational aggression predicted delinquency and risk-taking (Spieker et al.,
2011).
While much of the research on RA has been conducted with children and early
adolescents, there is evidence that RA has a number of adverse correlates among older
adolescents and emerging adults. Examples include anxiety, depression, self-harm,
substance use, poor impulse control and anger regulation, disordered eating, maladaptive
personality traits, peer rejection, and adjustment difficulties (Linder, Crick, & Collins,
2002; Miller & Lynam, 2003; Ostrov & Houston, 2008; Storch, Werner, & Storch, 2003;
Werner & Crick, 1999). In a recent study by Dahlen, Czar, Prather, and Dyess (2013),
general/peer RA was associated with anxiety, depression, loneliness, stress, trait anger,
academic burnout, and the misuse of alcohol in a college sample. After controlling for
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respondent gender, race, and relational victimization, Dahlen and colleagues found that
anxiety, trait anger, and alcohol misuse predicted general/peer RA.
In addition to the two forms of aggressive behavior (i.e., overt and relational),
aggression can be separated by function into proactive and reactive aggression (Burton,
Hafetin, & Hanninger, 2007; Murray-Close, Ostrov, Nelson, Crick, & Coccaro, 2010;
Ostrov & Houston, 2008). Proactive RA is planned and has a goal-directed end (e.g.,
spreading rumors to make oneself more popular). Reactive RA is impulsive and done out
of anger, usually in retaliation for a perceived insult (e.g., spreading malicious rumors
about a peer after having been insulted by that peer). The distinction can be useful
because there is some evidence that proactive and reactive RA have different correlates.
For example, Murray-Close and colleagues (2010) found that reactive RA but not
proactive RA correlated with distress experienced in provocative relational contexts,
hostile attributions, and abuse history. Moreover, the relationships of reactive RA to
measures of anger and hostility were stronger than those for proactive RA.
In spite of the adverse interpersonal correlates of RA, it should be recognized that
RA does require some level of status in one’s peer group because most acts of RA require
the cooperation of others. For example, a malicious rumor one starts will have little
effect unless others are willing to help spread it, and one cannot effectively exclude
someone from one’s social circle unless the other members agree to it. Thus, RA seems
to require at least some ability to be cooperative and friendly around others in order to
have the support needed to engage in these behaviors. It has been suggested that RA is
most likely to occur when these prosocial skills are paired with a lack of empathy in
social interactions (Ojanen et al., 2012). Lack of empathy, the desire to manipulate
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others, and/or the conviction that one is entitled to punish those who deviate from one’s
expectations may facilitate RA and can be found in certain personality constructs that
may be useful predictors of RA.
Models of General Personality Structure
The Five Factor Model (FFM) of personality (Costa & McCrae, 1992; Goldberg,
1990) has been used extensively to provide a broad representation of human personality,
and this has proven useful in understanding how personality is associated with overt and
relational forms of aggression (Burton et al., 2007; Egan & Lewis, 2011; Hines &
Saudino, 2008; Jones, Miller, & Lynam, 2011; Miller & Lynam, 2001, 2006; Miller,
Zeichner, & Wilson, 2012). Using a sample of community adults, Egan and Lewis
(2011) found that Neuroticism was positively related to overt affective aggression and
both Agreeableness and Extraversion were inversely related to overt narcissistic
aggression. They also found that some of the relationships between the FFM domains
and overt aggression varied by respondent gender. Specifically, the inverse relationships
of Agreeableness and Extraversion to narcissistic aggression were stronger for men than
for women. Hines and Saudino (2008) found that Neuroticism was positively related to
psychological aggression, a construct similar to RA, for both male and female college
students but that psychological aggression was positively related to Conscientiousness
and inversely related to Agreeableness among women. Miller and colleagues (2012)
found that RA was inversely related to both Agreeableness and Conscientiousness and
was positively related to Neuroticism among college students. Burton and colleagues
(2007), also using a college sample, found that the relationships between FFM domains
and RA varied by respondent gender (i.e., Agreeableness was inversely related to RA for
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